What’s in the World; An Analysis from Reas

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How has your perception of God evolved over time? (Glenn Siepert)

Growing up, God was an angry dad and Jesus was the one who took the beating I deserved.
Nice, right?
Jesus was good, I wasn't. Jesus was perfect, I was imperfect. Jesus made God happy, I made God mad. I was a sinner and since sin (I believed) needed to be punished, I deserved the very worst that the Great Cosmic Punisher could bring ...
Hell?
Fire?
Stoning?
Crucifixion?
... My very existence justified his wrath and the only way to bypass it was by 'being covered in the blood of Jesus', the sight of which (somehow) made God smile and have a change of heart towards me.
But then on March 30, 2017 my world changed when my daughter was born and from the NICU tank she rested in, she reached out to wrap her little hand around my finger. I stared into her eyes and had a theological crisis that would forever change my life and (I hope) the lives of Siepert generations to come - "how could the 'good good Father' that we sing about in church every Sunday be such a monster towards his children if I (as a new father) feel nothing but love, adoration, and wonder towards this new life that I helped create?"
With that, I began to question hell, original sin, and a variety of other theological topics that were jammed into my heart since I was a child. I dragged it all under a magnifying glass and (to this day) continue to radically rethink my understanding of God, feeling 100% free to disregard narrow views that I was taught from dusty old books to make room for ideas about God that stem from my experiences, my hopes, and my dreams.
Slowly Responding to Claims, Cutting through the poetry of words
The more of these posts that I read, the more I realize they are all saying the same things. The train of thought generally goes like this:
The God of the Bible has some thing recorded about Him that I don’t like, or I cannot make sense of.
Therefore that cannot be God.
So, I am about to tell you who God really is.
There is one additional premise that is used in this set of claims that is a bit sneakier, and it goes like this:
The “Church” has done and said all of these awful things.
Pause. What comes next is telling. If the claim of what the “church” is teaching, is in fact, just what the Bible says, than it is not the “church” doing or saying anything. It is a craftier way of just not stating what they really mean: The Bible teaches x, but I am going to say that it doesn’t and shift it to the church. That way I can get a bunch of people to think the church’s people are awful (which really means they think God’s word is awful).
Therefore that cannot represent God.
So, I am about to tell you who God really is.
Note a couple of things. Genesis 1:26-31 tells us God made man in His image. It is the most substantial and special portion of the creation, the imago dei. And it is reserved for Him. And Him alone. God creates us, and His image is unchangeable and eternal. Man did not create. And man does not create God in our image. This is disorder.
And yet.
Everything after this verse up until Jesus himself, is just that. It is the fall first (by thinking we know more than God, trying to make ourselves equal to Him), followed by generations of people seeking to create God’s of their own image. It is quite simply idolatry. Ancients may have been more prone to worship statues, but we worship ourselves. We worship the god’s we create in our image. What makes us feel good, is god. That’s how it goes. So, here we go….
God was an angry dad and Jesus was the one who took the beating I deserved. Questions: Given that we are talking about the God of the Bible and Jesus (who he wouldn’t know of outside of the Bible), here are some questions I’d be curious about with biblical answers:
Is the Bible authoritative. If no, then why do you (or should any of us) care one lick about what it says? I’ve got 1000 good books. Lot’s of interesting things in all of them.
If we say God is an angry dad, why is He angry? Is he always angry? Does he get angry when you eat breakfast? Wake up? Go to the store?
And why did this Jesus even need to come? God needed to send someone he could just beat up? Couldn’t he have just beaten up some random bad human instead?
Jesus was good, I wasn't. Jesus was perfect, I was imperfect. Jesus made God happy, I made God mad. I was a sinner and since sin (I believed) needed to be punished, I deserved the very worst that the Great Cosmic Punisher could bring ..
“I made God mad”: Why?
What is the nature of sin? What does the Bible teach about sins relationship to man and/or God?
My very existence justified his wrath and the only way to bypass it was by 'being covered in the blood of Jesus', the sight of which (somehow) made God smile and have a change of heart towards me.
Is God looking for a reason to be justified? And does your being alive give him the out He was looking for?
What does scripture teach that God does want? What does scripture teach of man and his nature?
"how could the 'good good Father' that we sing about in church every Sunday be such a monster towards his children if I (as a new father) feel nothing but love, adoration, and wonder towards this new life that I helped create?"
Not sure what is being said here about God. Is he suggesting God doesn’t love his children like Glenn does, or that he cannot connect that love and adoration with anything other than hugs? So, God creates a baby in this example. But when the baby is born, God does not love it because He is a monster and feels wrath towards the child? Is the claim that because Glenn felt such love towards his child, God should too? Okay, I can follow that. Or is the claim that unless God loves somebody in the way Glenn loves someone, he is not God?
With that, I began to question hell, original sin, and a variety of other theological topics that were jammed into my heart since I was a child. I dragged it all under a magnifying glass and (to this day) continue to radically rethink my understanding of God, feeling 100% free to disregard narrow views that I was taught from dusty old books to make room for ideas about God that stem from my experiences, my hopes, and my dreams.
If this were a philosophical proof, here is the “therefore” part of the claim. Based on what he has said so far, Glenn is now going to make some decisions.
Decision #1: We ought to (or at least Glenn) question hell. And sin altogether. We also ought to question a bunch of other stuff too.
I am now…….. 100% free to disregard whatever I want… First off, how’d we get here. Let’s recap: Glenn does not understand or like something that the Bible claims (best I can tell, that there might be consequences for decisions we make). So, he is going to call it a dusty book and throw out whatever bits he dislikes. Or to use his words, he is 100% free to disregard whatever he doesn’t like. So, now let’s unwrap the motive:
Glenn is going “to make room for ideas about God that stem from my experiences, my hopes, and my dreams.” Translation: I get to make god who I want him to be. My new god is ME. You see it right? Glenn is God. Because god accordingly to Glenn is him. It is HIS experiences that he likes. HIS hopes for HIS life. HIS dreams for himself or whoever. That is Glenn’s god. If God doesn’t comport to who Glenn wants Him to be, then he’ll make a God of me. And that folks, is where we are in the world. It is just that simple.
I wonder? Can we find any reference in scripture to God being in OUR image? Or, all about our experiences? Our hopes?
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